One of the more frustrating things for me, as I was beginning to dip my toes into the trad/folk music waters was the wildly different manners in which sheet music is notated. For clarification, I’m speaking solely about how the music is translated onto a traditional staff, with a treble clef, and written with quarter notes and eighth notes, etc (or crotches and hemidemisemiquavers, depending on your persuasion…). I’m not referring to any other style of notation for whistles that involves numbers or other symbols.
Many years ago, one of the first examples I encountered was the Reed 1 book for Aida, which calls for Flute, Alto Flute, Big Bamboo Flute in F, Big Bamboo Flute in G, and Small Bamboo Flute in B-flat. Having already learned that bamboo flute keys are named after the pitch heard when you cover three finger holes, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. However, here’s what I found:
When I cross referenced that flute part with the piano-conductor’s score, here’s what I discovered:
If you spotted the infuriating inconsistency here, bravo! Those transpositions don’t line up! Regardless of whether or not you refer to the bamboo flute by its key or its tonic (as described here), this doesn’t seem correct. What they actually did here when notating this part was to incorrectly name the key of the flutes required. They based the key specifications of the flute on “classical” conventions, where the key of the instrument is determined by the pitch heard when a C-natural is played. By calling this a part for “Bamboo Flute in F” they have thrown total chaos and confusion into the equation. Imagine if a player with some experience playing bamboo flutes saw that the book called for bamboo flutes in F, G, and B-flat, and then went out to purchase the requisite flutes for a production of the show, only to find out that the instrument list was miscommunicated because someone who prepared the music ignored the conventional system for that instrument?
One could argue that this was over 20 years ago (Aida opened on Broadway in 2000), and perhaps the conventions for integrating folk/traditional instruments into Broadway wasn’t fully established or worked out. However, check out this example from Miss Saigon, which opened on Broadway in 1991, a full nine years earlier:
This excerpt shows something a bit closer to traditional convention for key naming, but not what we were expecting either! This assumes that the bamboo flute is “keyed” after the pitch that is heard when 6 finger holes are closed, but most bamboo flutes are “keyed” after the pitch heard when only three finger holes are closed. Either way, this is a significantly more accurate way to notate the music than the Aida example.
Part of the problem here may be the ambiguity between the convention naming bamboo flutes by both their “key” and their “tonic”. Another part might be a refusal to accept that sort of convention and stick with “classical” theory and key naming. Another option is that whoever made the decision to name the flutes the way they were in the book’s requirements may have tried to “out think” the musicians who would ultimately be playing the book. Perhaps there was a little “well surely they won’t know this, so I’ll have to name the flutes by the keys that would be more common today.” Whatever it was, it is easy to see how much confusion and chaos this can cause.
With the ever-increasing call for traditional flutes on Broadway, it is essential that we come up with a standard system. We should be referring to the key of all flutes by the pitch heard when all six tone holes are covered. We should be notating those parts in the written key of D or G, whenever possible, regardless of how that would normally transpose.
Having reviewed the materials for the Broadway musical Come From Away, I am pleased to report that these two conventions are in place for that show. I am hopeful that this signals the start of a new tradition, where there is consistency and standardization across the board for new uses of traditional flutes in Broadway musicals.